^iFPfliS^ 


920 


A. 


Logical  st«# 


BR  125  .S56  1920 
Skottowe,  John  Coulson. 
Four  religious  essays 


5k 


FOUR    RELIGIOUS   ESSAYS 


BY 

JOHN  C.  SKOTTOWE 
relict  the 


ARTletVeRJTATI 


BOSTON 

RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE    GORHAM    PRESS 


Copyright,  1920,  by  John  C.  Skottowe 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Made  in  the  United  States   of  America 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  Some  Thoughts  on  the  Psychic  Constitu- 
tion of  Man  and  His  Latent  Possibili- 
ties             7 

II    Love  the  Basis  of  Religious  Unity     .       27 

III  Does    the    Church    Care    More    for 

Various  Theories  of  the  Truth  Than 
She  Does  for  the  Truth  Itself?  .     .       36 

IV  The  Divinity  of  Man 49 


FOUR  RELIGIOUS  ESSAYS 


FOUR  RELIGIOUS   ESSAYS 


I 


SOME  THOUGHTS  ON  THE  PSYCHIC  CONSTITUTION 
OF  MAN  AND  HIS  LATENT  POSSIBILITIES 

TO  write  an  essay  on  Psychics  or  Psychic 
Phenomena  is  indeed  a  task  so  vast  and  of 
so  great  importance  that  one  might  well  hesitate 
to  attempt  so  sublime  a  theme,  but  on  the  other 
hand,  when  one  has  for  years  tried  to  make  a 
fair  and  unprejudiced  study  of  a  particular  sub- 
ject and  has  hunted  up  and  studied  many  volumes 
and  compared  many  theories  concerning  the  Psy- 
chic constitution  of  man  and  its  faculties,  besides 
at  one  time  making  certain  personal  investigations 
in  what  is  known  as  Psychic  Phenomena,  it  may 
prove  of  some  benefit  to  those  who  have  had 
neither  the  time  nor  the  inclination  to  delve  into 
so  fascinating  a  subject  to  hear  some  of  the  theo- 
ries so  studied  and  some  of  the  conclusions  ar- 
rived at. 

The  tendency  of  the  greatest  masters  of  the 

7 


8  Four  Religious  Essays 

Occult  at  the  present  day  with  which  we  are  in 
full  sympathy  is  to  try  to  bridge  over  the  chasm 
that  exists  between  the  extremely  contemplative 
and  mystic  idealism  of  the  Orient  which  runs  un- 
doubtedly to  an  extreme  on  one  side,  with  the 
extreme  physical  practicalism  of  the  Occident 
which  runs  to  an  extreme  on  the  other  side.  We 
use  the  word  "physical"  and  not  "material"  for 
reasons  which  will  appear  later  on.  Each,  we  be- 
lieve, has  an  important  lesson  to  impart  to  the 
other,  and  the  happy  balance  which  in  due  season 
will  be  finally  struck  will  prove  of  the  greatest 
benefit  to  mankind,  as  both  extremes  up  to  a  cer- 
tain point  are  also  necessary  for  their  final  com- 
pletion, preparatory  to  their  final  blending  for 
the  fuller  completion  of  humanity. 

No  one  can  read  the  ancient  religions  of  Egypt, 
Chaldea,  India,  and  also  that  of  the  Druids,  with- 
out becoming  convinced  that  they  had  made  a 
marvellous  study  of  the  complex  constitution  of 
Human  Nature.  Moreover  we  find  that  the  great 
religious  masters,  including  those  of  primitive 
Christianity,  and  the  Master  himself,  always  with- 
held certain  spiritual  and  psychic  knowledge  from 
the  populace  for  good  and  valid  reasons,  well 
known  and  understood  by  the  student  of  occultism, 
and  which  were  only  handed  down  orally  to  the 


The  Psychic  Constitution  of  Man  9 

Initiate  who  to  the  best  of  their  knowledge  and 
belief  after  most  severe  trials  and  tests  were  then 
deemed  duly  and  truly  prepared,  worthy  and  well 
qualified  to  receive  them.  We  also  find  after  a 
careful  study  that  there  have  been  two  dominant 
factors  in  religion,  the  highest  and  noblest  from 
time  immemorial  recognizing  and  upholding  the 
inalienable  rights  and  liberties  of  the  Individual, 
holding  that  the  Individual,  to  be  of  the  greatest 
use  to  society  of  which  he  is  an  integral  part, 
must  develop  that  individuality  to  the  highest 
point;  the  other  holding  that  the  organization  is 
of  supreme  importance  and  teaching  that  loyalty 
to  the  Institution  even  at  the  risk  of  forfeiting 
one's  individual  rights  and  opinions  is  necessary 
and  that  man  must  sacrifice  himself  to  the  organ- 
ization so  becoming  of  the  greatest  use  to  society 
within  the  organization  and  thus  practically  be- 
coming a  slave  to  the  institution  and  its  heads,  for 
which  sacrifice  of  individuality  certain  rewards  are 
held  out  to  them  both  in  this  life  and  especially 
in  the  life  hereafter.  So  far  as  true  psychic  de- 
velopment is  concerned,  the  latter  method  is  de- 
cidedly destructive  to  individual  unfoldment  and 
spiritual  and  psychic  growth,  whereas  the  former 
is  constructive,  as  it  follows  the  laws  of  nature  on 
all  planes,  and  not  any  man's  particular  theories. 


io  Four  Religious  Essays 

Its  distinguishing  between  theories  and  natural 
laws  may  be  proved  by  personal  demonstration 
by  those  who  elect  to  test  them. 

Some  sort  of  survival  of  the  Physical  Death 
has  been  held  in  varying  degree  in  all  religions, 
some,  however,  having  a  much  more  advanced  and 
clear  idea  on  this  subject  than  others.  It  is  also 
curious  to  note  that  many  from  time  immemorial 
have  held  that  it  is  possible  under  certain  condi- 
tions for  the  living  to  hold  communion  with  the 
dead.  We  find  that  the  greatest  masters  of  the 
Occult  teach  that  this  is  possible  in  two  ways,  one 
of  which  they  designate  as  the  Constructive  Princi- 
ple of  Nature  in  Individual  Life,  which  belongs 
to  the  highest  kind  of  Individual  Liberty  and 
which  is  brought  about  by  Individual  Develop- 
ment through  hastening  on  and  aiding  evolution- 
ary methods  or  perhaps  better  expressed  by  has- 
tening on  evolutionary  conditions,  in  which  case 
the  Individual  is  perfectly  conscious  of  every  step 
he  takes;  this  method  might  also  be  termed  the 
objective  method  because  in  all  he  undergoes  he 
is  in  a  perfectly  self-conscious  condition.  The 
other  method  they  call  the  Destructive  Principle 
of  Nature  in  Individual  Life,  which  is  the  sub- 
jective method  and  is  also  the  method  employed 
in  mediumship,  which  is  heartily  condemned  and 


The  Psychic  Constitution  of  Man         1 1 

pointed  out  as  dangerous  to  the  soul  of  man  as  it 
is  practically  destructive  to  the  rational  intelli- 
gence and  will  of  man,  and  is  liable  to  lead  to 
lunacy  and  obsession.  The  facts  and  phenomena 
of  mediumship  are  not  denied,  but  the  methods 
of  their  usual  production  are  severely  censured,  it 
being  pointed  out  that  mediumship  like  hypnotism 
is  a  psychic  process  and  both  are  liable  to  deprive 
the  individual  under  their  influence  of  his  Indi- 
vidual Will  and  Rational  Intelligence,  and  hence 
of  his  self-control,  thus  depriving  him  of  those 
faculties  of  the  soul  which  endow  him  with  the 
gift  of  Humanity  and  which  raise  him  above  the 
brute  creation,  and  in  that  condition  he  more  than 
likely  becomes  the  mere  automaton  of  his  hypno- 
tizer,  or  if  in  the  case  of  mediumship,  which  is 
practically  hypnotism  by  a  disincarnate  being,  of 
his  control. 

They  teach  us  that  the  constructive  develop- 
ment, if  followed  and  obeyed,  finally  produces  a 
Master.  That  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  subjective 
method  is  insisted  upon,  it,  being  as  a  rule  destruc- 
tive, likely  leads  to  danger  and  disaster  to  the 
soul. 

That  some  of  the  wise  men  or  Magi  of  old 
understood  the  complex  nature  of  man  more  fully 
than  it  is  generally  understood  to-day,  we  do  not 


12  Four  Religious  Essays 

hesitate  in  admitting,  but  we  also  believe  that  the 
teaching  of  these  ancient  masters  is  not  as  some 
believe  entirely  lost,  but  that  it  has  been  handed 
down  to  the  present  day  to  a  few  by  whom  it  is 
jealously  and  carefully  guarded  for  most  impor- 
tant and  valid  reasons,  and  that  at  the  proper  time 
the  knowledge  they  possess  will  be  given  gradually 
to  the  world,  after  perhaps  undergoing  certain 
modifications.  In  fact  we  have  reasons  for  be- 
lieving that  there  probably  is  a  secret  school  in 
direct  line  of  descent  who  have  been  and  still  are 
accumulating  vast  stores  of  knowledge  along  these 
specific  lines  and  which,  as  just  now  said,  when  the 
right  time  comes  will  be  more  generally  imparted 
to  the  world. 

In  a  book  entitled  "Future  Life,"  by  Louis 
Elbe,  we  find  stated  that  the  Human  Being  has 
been  considered  as  made  up  of  seven  elements,  of 
which  that  of  Theosophy,  the  Hindu,  and  the 
Egyptian  are  given  as  follows: 


Theosophical 

Hindu 

Egyptii 

I. 

Physical  Body 

Rapa 

Xa 

2. 

Vitality 

Jiva 

Hati 

3- 

Astral  Body 

Luiga  chavira 

Tet 

4- 

Animal  Soul 

KamaRapa 

Xaib 

5- 

Human  Soul 

Manas 

Sahu 

6. 

Spiritual  Soul 

Buddhi 

Ra 

7- 

Divine  Spirit 

Atma 

Ka 

Another  division  in  English  terms  has  also  been 
given  as  follows: 


The  Psychic  Constitution  of  Man         13 


Physical  Body 

Astral  Body 

Prana  or  Vital  Force 

Instinctive  Mind 

Intellect. 

Spiritual  Mind 

Spirit 


In  the  Old  Testament  there  are  three  distinct 
Hebrew  words  which  are  roughly  translated  soul 
or  spirit:  nichema,  rouah,  nephesh.  In  the  crea- 
tion of  man  in  Genesis  these  terms  are  used  and 
Hebrew  scholars  wishing  to  keep  a  distinction  in 
view  have  given  this  rendering:  "The  Lord  God 
joined  to  his  material  organs  (that  is,  of  man) 
the  intelligent  soul  (the  ego)  nichema,  bearing  the 
breath  of  life;  rouah  (which  follows  it  in  all 
lives)  ;  and  the  bond  of  this  union  of  the  soul  with 
the  gross  body  was  a  breath  of  life,  nephesh. 

There  is  another  division  of  these  elements  or 
bodies  made  by  the  School  of  Natural  Science 
which  is  as  follows : 

Physical  Body  Physical    Magnetism     or     Physical 

Magnetic  Body 

Spiritual  Magnetism  or        Spiritual  Magnetic  Body 

Spiritual  Body  Soul  or  Ego 

With  the  following  Life  Elements: 

Mineral  Kingdom  One  Life  Element,  Electro-Magnetic 

Vegetable   Kingdom  Two   Life    Elements,     Electro-Mag- 

netic and  Vito-Chemical,  latter 
predominating. 

Animal  Kingdom  Three  Life  Elements,   Electro-Mag- 

netic, Vito-Chemical  and  the 
Spiritual  Life  Element,  latter 
predominating. 


14  Four  Religious  Essays 

Mankind  Four  Life  Elements,  Electric  Mag- 

netic, Vito-Chemical,  Spiritual 
Life  Element,  Soul  Life  Element, 
latter  predominating. 

That  the  A  has  been  one  of  the  symbols  of 
man  in  various  schools  of  occult  science  for  ages 
past  is  interesting.  Here  we  find  the  base  repre- 
senting the  Physical  Body  with  all  its  faculties, 
attributes  and  properties;  the  left  hand  side  of 
the  triangle  representing  the  Spiritual  Body  with 
all  its  faculties,  attributes  and  properties;  and  the 
right  hand  side,  the  Intelligent  Rational  Being, 
Ego  or  Soul.  In  a  subject  of  this  kind  one  must 
give  credit  to  all  sources  for  his  information. 
What  he  can  do  for  himself  is  to  draw  conclusions 
and  test  what  is  claimed.  Among  other  things 
we  learn  to  realize  that  there  is  spiritual  matter 
or  substance  as  well  as  physical  matter  or  sub- 
stance, and  that  between  the  physical  universe  and 
the  spiritual  universe  there  is  another  large  field 
of  matter  not  so  ethereal  as  the  spiritual  and 
more  closely  allied  to  the  physical,  known  as  the 
Magnetic  Field,  and  that  there  is  spiritual  magne- 
tism which  is  attracted  to  the  physical  body,  and 
that  Physical  and  Spiritual  Magnetism  are  attract- 
ed to  each  other.  During  our  earthly  life  the 
soul,  which  is  back  of  all  these,  manifests  itself 
on  the  physical  plane  through  the  physical  organ- 


The  Psychic  Constitution  of  Man         15 

ism;  that  the  Spiritual  Body  resides  within  the 
Physical,  though  it  does  not  actually  occupy  the 
same  space,  which  one  writer  expresses  somewhat 
in  the  following  manner,  "You  can  fill  a  glass  with 
marbles  and  after  it  is  so  filled  you  can  add  to  it 
a  lot  of  small  shot;  still  it  is  not  full,  for  you  can 
then  fill  up  the  still  vacant  space  with  fine  sand 
and  after  this  you  can  pour  in  water  and  still  other 
liquids  of  less  density  and  can  then  charge  it  with 
electricity."  Matter  in  the  magnetic  field  is  on  a 
much  higher  vibratory  rate  than  that  in  the  phys- 
ical world,  and  matter  in  the  spiritual  world  on 
still  a  higher  vibratory  plane.  That  the  latent 
spiritual  senses  can  be  developed  by  proper  train- 
ing, the  basis  of  which  is  a  strict  morality,  moral- 
ity being  defined  as  "man's  established  Harmonic 
Relations  to  the  Constructive  Principle  of  his  own 
being,"  that  there  is  a  technical  work  of  Instruc- 
tion, is  also  admitted,  but  it  is  never  given  until 
sought  for  by  a  student  and  then  not  until  he  shall 
have  proved  himself  worthy  and  well  qualified  and 
duly  and  truly  prepared  to  receive  the  same,  and 
no  monetary  remuneration  is  ever  received  for 
such  instruction,  that  it  is  given  orally  and  under 
the  greatest  secrecy;  it  is  also  clearly  stated  that 
but  few  at  the  present  day  have  the  time  or  the 
means  to  devote  to  it,  and  that  any  man  who  lives 
a  pure  and  moral  and  unselfish  life,  at  death  will 


1 6  Four  Religious  Essays 

thus  have  prepared  his  soul  for  residence  in  the 
higher  spiritual  planes  of  existence  whether  he 
at  present  is  aware  of  the  fact  or  not,  as  obedience 
to  God's  or  Nature's  laws  always  reaps  their  due 
reward. 

At  death  we  learn  that  man  may  enter  at  once 
into  the  Spiritual  World  in  his  Spiritual  Body  and 
with  his  Spiritual  Magnetism,  that  those  not  pre- 
pared and  still  clinging  to  earth  retain  their  phys- 
ical magnetism  or  physical  magnetic  body  and  re- 
side in  the  magnetic  field  until  such  time  as  they 
learn  to  unfold  and  leave  it  behind  when  it  gradu- 
ally vanishes  back  to  the  elements  to  which  it  be- 
longs as  does  the  physical  to  its  elements,  but  that 
it  can  to  some  extent,  after  the  owner  has  parted 
with  it,  be  preserved  by  spirits  who  understand 
the  way  (it  sometimes  being  known  as  the  astral 
shell)  and  that  at  spiritual  seances  these  astral 
shells  are  often  made  use  of  by  evil  spirits  as  a 
mask  to  impersonate  their  original  owners,  again 
showing  one  more  way  by  which  the  unwary  may 
be  deceived  in  mediumistic  seances. 

No  student  of  the  Occult  can  get  very  far  in  his 
studies  without  realizing  the  reason  why  what  is 
called  the  school  of  White  Magic  constantly  warns 
against  Black  Magic,  which  is  dangerous  and  de- 
structive to  the  individual  soul.  That  the  Magnet- 
ic Field  of  the  Mystic  and  Occult  Societies  has 


The  Psychic  Constitution  of  Man         17 

given  rise  to  the  Christian  Intermediate  State  and 
the  Roman  Catholic  Purgatory,  there  is  in  my 
mind  no  further  doubt. 

Again  the  reason  that  our  Lord  undoubtedly 
laid  such  tremendous  stress  upon  right  conduct  to 
those  who  followed  him  is  also  made  more  clear 
by  my  researches,  as  a  good  life  here  results  in 
a  good  life  hereafter  even  though  we  may  be  in 
complete  ignorance  concerning  the  conditions  in 
another  life.  That  the  dangers  and  temptations 
arising  from  the  student  who  unfolds  his  marvel- 
lous latent  psychic  powers  and  forces  by  means 
of  the  constructive  method  are  also  very  great  is 
also  perfectly  clear,  for  if  used  for  selfish  pur- 
poses they  become  destructive  to  the  soul,  and  we 
all  know  what  it  means  to  eradicate  every  particle 
of  selfishness  which  is  so  innate  in  us  all.  But 
that  it  is  necessary  for  some  to  know  these  things 
and  that  there  are  a  few  great  and  good  enough 
to  use  them  aright  is  also  well,  for  it  is  necessary 
for  some  to  know  these  things  by  personal  experi- 
ence and  self-development,  for  some  must  be  in 
advance  of  others  to  lead  the  world  gradually  on 
to  higher  and  nobler  conceptions  and  more  pro- 
found truths.  We  also  most  firmly  believe  that 
the  only  legitimate  way  to  unfold  these  latent  di- 
vine psychic  faculties  is  by  the  independent  con- 
structive method  by  strict  obedience  to  the  laws 


1 8  Four  Religious  Essays 

of  God  that  make  for  Individual  unfoldment, 
without  wilfully  impairing  or  sacrificing  our  Per- 
sonal Responsibility  which  distinguishes  man  from 
the  brute  creation.  We  believe  the  only  true  way 
is  the  narrow  way  of  attainment  mentioned  by  our 
Lord  and  Master.  That  the  subjective  method  by 
which  we  temporarily  forfeit  our  Personal  Re- 
sponsibility and  allow  ourselves  to  become  mere 
automatons,  or  machines,  yea,  the  playthings,  for 
other  beings  either  incarnate  or  disincarnate  to 
do  what  they  please  with  us,  we  believe  to  be  ex- 
tremely dangerous  against  nature  and  nature's 
God,  who  has  endowed  us  with  that  precious  gift 
which  raises  us  above  the  brute  creation  and 
makes  us  morally  responsible  beings;  and  to  trifle 
with  this  gift  and  to  forfeit  it  even  for  a  time  is  to 
trifle  with  our  souls,  which  will  have  a  most  de- 
structive effect  upon  our  present  and  future  well 
being  that  we  may  find  it  extremely  hard  to  rec- 
tify and  if  insisted  on,  who  can  tell,  may  be  ex- 
tremely fatal  to  the  Individual  soul  itself;  there- 
fore my  advice,  except  for  strictly  scientific  inves- 
tigation and  purposes,  is  for  the  ordinary  individ- 
ual to  be  very  careful  as  to  how  he  or  she  dabbles 
in  Purely  Subjective  Methods. 

My  study  and  researches  naturally  at  one  time 
led  me  to  a  very  great  interest  in  mediumistic 
Psychic  Phenomena  and  various  other  subjective 


The  Psychic  Constitution  of  Man         19 

processes  of  coming  into  touch  with  the  physically 
unseen  and  having  found  enough  evidence  at  pri- 
vate seances  to  satisfy  myself  of  the  genuineness 
of  some  of  the  instances  recorded,  we  were  for 
some  time  not  unfavorably  disposed  towards  hon- 
est mediumship ;  but  one  thing  always  was  unsatis- 
factory, which  was  this,  that  the  one  who  brought 
about  the  results  when  genuine  was  himself  or  her- 
self very  often  practically  unconscious  and  irre- 
sponsible during  the  sitting.  We  felt  for  years 
that  there  surely  must  be  an  independent  method 
whereby  one  could  consciously  unfold  those  higher 
faculties  which  are  lying  dormant  or  latent  within 
us  and  which  one  school  designates  as  the  subjec- 
tive mind  or  subconscious  self,  and  at  the  same 
time  retain  the  memory  of  all  thus  seen  unim- 
paired, and  of  one's  own  free  will  go  and  return 
into  the  higher  planes  of  existence  as  we  saw  fit. 
We  have  been  extremely  glad  that  some  of  the 
best  Teachers  of  True  Psychism  and  Occultism 
have  held  for  centuries  the  possibilities  of  this 
very  thing,  and  there  are  some  who  have  indi- 
vidually demonstrated  its  possibility.  The  writer 
intuitively  knows  it  as  a  fact,  but  he  is  still  but 
an  interested  student  and  hopes  an  unbiassed  and 
unprejudiced  seeker  after  Truth. 

There  is  much  more  we  could  say,  as  a  study  of 
mankind  leads  one  into  a  thousand  and  one  ques- 


20  Four  Religious  Essays 

tions  not  only  purely  psychical  but  also  sociologi- 
cal, for  you  cannot  separate  the  indwelling  spirit 
that  manifests  itself  in  a  thousand  different  forms 
and  on  manifold  planes  from  the  form  it  at  any 
one  particular  period  happens  to  assume  and  from 
the  individual  relationship  it  bears  to  other  forms 
so  manifesting  themselves.  No  one  has  ever  seen 
a  soul;  all  he  sees  is  the  form  that  soul  manifests 
itself  in;  it  may  be  a  physical  body,  an  astral  body, 
or  a  spiritual  body,  but  so  far  as  we  can  learn  it 
always  manifests  itself  through  some  form  of 
material,  for  there  is,  as  already  remarked,  spir- 
itual material  as  well  as  physical  material,  only 
on  a  higher  plane  of  vibration. 

When  we  have  learned  by  a  wonderful  mastery 
over  self  and  perfect  self-control  to  withdraw  our- 
selves absolutely  from  our  physical  surroundings 
and,  figuratively  speaking,  to  close  ourselves  to 
the  world,  then  we  realize  that  we  can  use  our 
latent  senses  so  that  they  can  behold  other  worlds 
than  this.  At  death  our  physical  instrument  which 
connects  us  with  the  physical  universe  is  dissolved 
or  left  behind,  that  is  all.  We  may,  if  we  know 
how,  be  able  to  clothe  ourselves  temporarily  with 
physical  matter  again  and  so  appear  for  some 
special  object,  but  this  is  simply  a  physical  phenom- 
enon and  not  a  spiritual  one. 

We  now  hope  that  enough  has  been  said  to 


The  Psychic  Constitution  of  Man         21 

awaken  some  slight  interest  in  this  subject,  one 
often  neglected  and  sometimes  ignorantly  scoffed 
at,  but  the  writer  knows  that  on  more  than  one 
occasion  he  has  been  able  from  the  results  of  his 
researches  to  give  consolation  at  those  hours  of 
sorrow  which  come  sooner  or  later  to  us  all,  which, 
had  it  not  been  for  his  certainty  of  that  whereon 
he  spoke,  he  could  not  have  uttered  the  words  he 
did,  words  which  have  helped  to  heal  a  sadly 
stricken  heart. 

There  are  people,  perhaps,  who  do  not  care  to 
know  very  much  about  a  place  they  are  about  to 
visit  or  to  move  to.  They  like  to  be  surprised, 
but  they  may  be  disappointed.  Others  like  to 
know  all  about  where  they  are  going  so  that  they 
can  make  the  best  use  of  their  time  and  pass  on 
if  possible  to  some  place  of  greater  interest  and 
more  congeniality.  We  must  all  pass  the  Great 
Divide;  a  great  surprise  awaits  many,  but  he  who 
knows  what  he  has  to  face  will  not  go  in  darkness 
and  in  doubt,  but  ready  to  take  up  his  work  where 
he  has  left  it  off  here,  that  is,  if  he  is  interested 
in  things  pertaining  to  the  soul  and  its  relation- 
ship to  other  souls,  nor  is  he,  on  the  other  hand, 
impatient,  for  he  also  realizes  that  his  essential 
ego  or  soul  is  as  much  in  God's  Universe  and 
Eternity  now  as  it  always  has  been  and  always 
will  be  on  some  plane  of  manifestation. 


22  Four  Religious  Essays 

In  a  paper  of  this  kind  it  is  impossible  to  give 
more  than  a  smattering  of  the  ground  gone  over 
in  one's  researches  in  this  most  intensely  interest- 
ing and  all-absorbing  topic,  which  includes  all 
branches  of  the  so-called  Occult  Sciences  such  as 
Astrology,  Palmistry,  Psychometry,  Magic  includ- 
ing Witchcraft,  the  various  forms  of  Mental  and 
Psychic  Healing,  Divination  and  Prophecy,  Spir- 
itism, Demonology,  Hypnotism,  Mesmerism,  etc. 
All  of  these,  we  believe,  have  a  substratum  of  im- 
portant truth,  which  we  by  no  means  have  heard 
the  last  of,  but  which  in  the  extreme  materialistic 
wave  which  passed  over  the  western  hemisphere 
in  the  last  century  were  all  too  hurriedly  banished 
into  the  background  and  dubbed  as  superstition 
and  follies  of  a  bygone  and  ignorant  age.  The 
materialistic  science  of  last  century,  not  forgetting 
the  great  good  it  accomplished  and  the  many  phys- 
ical blessings  and  comforts  it  has  undoubtedly  im- 
parted to  us,  lacked  the  True  Scientific  Spirit  of 
the  Present  Day  which  demands  a  fair  and  im- 
partial inquiry  into  all  things  and  is  learning  to 
condemn  that  haughty  dogmatic  spirit  which 
claims  to  know  it  all.  Some  of  the  subjects  men- 
tioned have  in  the  past  been  given  a  far  more 
careful  and  untiring  research,  and  conclusions 
which  were  reached  centuries  ago  are  again  be- 
ginning to  find  credence  in  scientific  circles.    Mes- 


The  Psychic  Constitution  of  Man         23 

merism  and  Hypnotism  are  no  longer  dispatched 
with  a  wave  of  the  hand;  they  are  undisputed 
facts,  forerunners,  no  doubt,  of  certain  others  yet 
to  be  re-established,  renovated,  no  doubt,  and 
stripped  of  their  errors  but  not  entirely  false. 

Again  we  have  found  in  our  researches  of 
Occultism  and  Psychics  that,  among  other  things 
not  mentioned,  it  teaches  us  not  only  to  believe 
but  to  know  that  the  great  universal  Intelligence 
is  at  all  events  a  God  of  Divine  Law  and  Order, 
and  that  man  in  fulfilling  the  laws  of  his  higher 
being  unfolds  ever  more  and  more  freely  his  latent 
divine  principles  or  potentialities.  It  teaches  us 
that  by  a  wrong  use  of  the  higher  principles  at- 
tained through  personal  development  man  for  a 
time  can  sink  lower  than  the  brutes  and  that  with 
intense  pain  and  suffering  he  must  retrace  his 
steps.  It  destroys  all  ideas  of  an  unworthy  me- 
chanical or  substitutionary  religion.  It  gives  us 
inexpressible  and  marvellous  beauty  and  spiritual 
understanding  of  the  work  and  teachings  of  our 
Blessed  Lord  and  Master  Jesus  the  Christ,  mak- 
ing morality  and  a  true  moral  character  in  its 
highest  sense  the  Basis  of  True  Religion  and  of 
true  Psychic  and  Spiritual  Development.  It 
teaches  the  eternity  of  the  soul  of  individual  life 
and  progression,  and  the  unfoldment  and  attain- 
ment of  great  spiritual  and  psychic  powers  which 


24  Four  Religious  Essays 

when  rightly  used  can  be  of  inestimable  benefit  to 
mankind.  It  shows  man  how  by  obedience  to  the 
natural  laws  of  the  Beneficent  Creator  he  can  be- 
come master  of  himself  and  his  appetites  and 
passions  and  also  of  his  conditions,  instead  of  a 
slave  to  custom,  to  every  passing  idea  that  takes 
his  fancy,  and  to  his  conditions  and  environment, 
for  it  shows  how  the  latent  possibilities  and  pow- 
ers of  the  soul  may  be  so  developed  as  to  make  us 
superior  to  the  influence  of  environment  and 
heredity.  It  teaches  how  obedience  to  God's  laws 
on  all  planes  as  shown  and  taught  by  Jesus  the 
Master  of  Masters,  the  Christ,  can  enable  us  to 
overcome  disease  except  by  accident  to  the  Physical 
Body,  and  how  we  may  become  immune  to  sick- 
ness, always  providing  that  we  are  willing  to  pay 
the  price  of  obedience  to  the  laws  of  our  being. 

Many,  no  doubt,  who  have  made  no  research 
into  the  marvellous  constitution  of  man,  who  re- 
ceives a  divine  as  well  as  a  physical  heredity,  may 
feel  inclined  to  smile  at  all  this  as  the  dream  of  a 
visionary  idealist,  but  he  who  does  so  lays  himself 
open  to  the  charge  of  scoffing  at  the  One  Perfect 
Master  of  Spiritual,  Psychic  and  Occult  truth, 
Jesus,  the  Divine  Man  Jesus  the  Christ,  who 
years  ago  announced  that  "whosoever  believeth 
in  me  shall  never  die,  because  to  such  a  one  there 
is  no  death,"  only  orderly  transition  to  a  higher 


The  Psychic  Constitution  of  Man         25 

plane  of  manifestation,  and  who  also  said  to  his 
disciples  "Greater  works  than  these  shall  ye  do," 
alluding  to  his  own  marvellous  works  which  were 
wrought  through  his  perfect  knowledge  of 
spiritual  and  psychic  forces  which  are  lying  latent 
waiting  for  our  mastery  and  our  knowledge  of 
how  to  develop  and  then  apply  them. 

Let  me  close  with  the  following  words  of  Louis 
Elbe,  to  be  found  towards  the  close  of  his  inter- 
esting book  on  "Future  Life."  I  quote  them  as  so 
many  things  of  vast  importance  hinge  upon  their 
truth  which  personally  I  accept  as  well  demon- 
strated. 

"The  law  of  indestructibility  applies  not  only  to 
matter  and  energy,  but  also  to  all  events  of  the 
past,  which  also  become  indestructible  when  once 
they  have  been  recorded  in  the  vibrations  of  the 
ether,  and  we  have  every  reason  to  suppose  that 
the  law  holds  good  of  phenomena  purely  immate- 
rial in  appearance  such  as  thought,  seeing  that  the 
ideas  which  we  conceive  appear  also  to  be  in- 
scribed in  the  unending  vibrations  of  the  invincible 
ether.  We  recognize,  in  fine,  that  nothing  what- 
soever in  the  universe  can  elude  the  inevitable 
operation  of  the  incorruptible  law  which  eternally 
preserves  the  memory  of  the  past;  and  we  are 
hence  justified  in  concluding  that  the  living,  and 
especially    the    conscious,    forces    must    also    be 


26  Four  Religious  Essays 

amenable  to  the  same  law,  for  it  can  scarcely  have 
determined  to  preserve  the  memory  of  our  most 
insignificant  acts,  and  yet  be  unwilling  to  preserve 
the  being  who  is  their  author."  (Future  Life, 
Elbe,  pp  370-371.) 


II 

LOVE  THE  BASIS  OF  RELIGIOUS  UNITY 

WE  hear  a  great  deal  of  talk  at  the  present 
time  about  Church  unity,  but  it  appears  to 
us  that  a  great  many  who  discuss  this  subject  do 
so  in  anything  but  an  unprejudiced  light;  many 
might  well  ask  themselves  the  question  as  to 
whether  they  are  fully  decided  in  their  own  minds 
that  it  really  is  Unity,  and  not  Uniformity,  that 
they  truly  desire. 

When  properly  sifted  down  to  Fundamental 
Principles,  after  laying  aside  all  prejudice  and 
personal  preferences,  it  will  be  found  that  a  great 
many  of  the  Dogmas  and  Doctrines  of  all  the  so- 
called  Christian  Churches  and  Bodies  are  not 
essential  to  the  pure  Christianity  of  Jesus  the 
Christ,  and  may  or  may  not  be  opposed  to  it,  ac- 
cording to  the  mental  impression  which  they  pro- 
duce upon  those  who  come  into  direct  contact  with 
them. 

The  Fundamental  Principle  of  the  teaching  of 
Jesus   is   Love   to   God  proved  by   our  love   to 

27 


28  Four  Religions  Essays 

Humanity,  as  common  spiritual  offspring  from 
Him  upon  which  He  bases  all  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets.  (See  Math.  xxi.  37-40.)  What  then  is 
love  to  God?  What  definition  of  God,  if  any, 
can  be  given  to  suit  all  requirements?  What 
do  we  mean  by  God?  The  definition  that  ap- 
pears to  me  as  ^coming  the  nearest  to  filling  all 
necessary  requirements  would  be  this;  any  man's 
highest  conception  of  what  is  good  and  perfect, 
which  he  happens  to  hold  at  any  particular  time, 
is  the  highest  conception  of  God  which  at  that 
time  he  is  capable  of  holding;  therefore  he  must 
love  his  highest  conception  of  Goodness  and  Per- 
fection with  all  his  heart,  soul  and  mind;  this  gives 
him  something  real  and  tangible  instead  of  some- 
thing vague  and  hazy  upon  which  to  set  his  af- 
fections; it  is  well  to  remember  that  he  is  to  love 
his  neighbor  as  himself,  therefore  he  must  first 
learn  to  love  his  higher  Divine  Self,  the  Divine 
Immanence;  therefore  in  loving  his  neighbor  as 
himself  it  is  most  important  that  he  should  have 
a  proper  conception  of  himself  as  a  child  of  the 
Universal  Spirit,  of  whom  all  are  children;  in 
loving  himself  and  others  he  is  also  loving  his  and 
their  Divine  Origin  whom  we  call  God,  the  Uni- 
versal Spirit,  who  is  above  all,  through  all,  and 
in  all. 

God  is  Spirit. 


Love  the  Basis  of  Religious   Unity        29 

Spirit  is  Infinite. 

All  universal  Law  comes  from  the  Infinite 
Spirit. 

Therefore  all  Natural  Law  is  capable  of  Infinite 
Unfoldment. 

Sin  is  the  Transgression  of  the  Law.  Universal 
Laws  are  Physical,  Mental,  Moral,  Psychical,  and 
Spiritual,  each  and  all  of  which  are  natural  on 
their  own  plane.  Ignorance  of  Law  is  therefore 
the  principal  cause  of  Sin. 

Now  undoubtedly  the  simplest  statement  of 
Religion  given  by  all  great  Spiritual  Teachers  and 
especially  that  of  the  greatest  of  all,  Jesus  the 
Christ,  could  be  expressed  in  these  words:  the 
unfoldment  of  the  Divine  within  the  undeveloped 
Human,  or  the  bringing  of  the  Human  into  one 
mind,  i.  e.,  atonement  with  the  mind  of  God  the 
Universal  Spirit;  but  the  Spirit  is  Infinite,  there- 
fore this  unfoldment  is  eternal  and  progressive, 
as  is  also  all  Divine  Law  considered  from  our  not 
fully  developed  Human  standpoint. 

This  makes  it  a  self-evident  fact  that  no  dogmas 
or  doctrines  in  their  present  form  can  be  final. 
They  doubtless  have  hidden  beneath  the  letter  an 
underlying  Divine  Principle  which  is  changeless, 
but  the  forms  and  symbols  which  they  assume 
must  undergo  constant  modification  and  change 
according  to  the  development,  i.  e.,  the  evolution, 


30  Four  Religious  Essays 

of  the  Human  Race.  Once  grasp  this  fact  and 
Unity  is  no  longer  a  difficulty,  for  then  the  True 
Christian  recognizes  that  the  thing  to  be  aimed 
at  and  desired  is  the  unfoldment  of  the  higher 
divine  nature,  that  is,  Christly  principles,  lying 
latent  in  some,  and  in  all  degrees  of  development 
in  others,  being  careful  not  to  interfere  with  the 
individuality,  bearing  in  mind  that  each  man  hath 
his  own  gift  from  God,  who  as  Universal  Spirit 
in  a  certain  sense  becomes  individualized  in  each 
of  his  creatures,  which  should  be  true  manifesta- 
tion of  his  spirit,  or  in  other  words  become  per- 
fect instruments  for  the  Universal  Spirit  to  work 
through,  and  in  which  to  become  individualized,  as 
St.  Paul  says,  One  God  and  Father  of  all,  who 
is  above  all,  through  all,  and  in  you  all.  All  forms 
of  Christianity,  and  in  fact  of  any  Religion,  on 
no  account  should  ever  be  regarded  as  an  end 
in  themselves,  as  this  is  the  great  danger  to  which 
all  are  subjected,  and  if  they  do  not  observe  care  it 
defeats  the  very  object  for  which  they  truly  exist. 
They  must  ever  keep  before  the  minds  of  the 
masses  that  they  are  only  a  means  to  an  end,  to  be 
used  as  guides,  signposts,  and  spiritual  tonics  to 
the  soul  in  its  endeavors  to  come  into  conscious 
communion  with  the  Divine  Source  of  its  being; 
then  as  we  recognize  that  men  are  on  all  planes 
and  stages  of  growth  and  evolution,  we  will  readily 


Love  the  Basis  of  Religious   Unity        31 

recognize  that  one  form  may  help  one  and  another 
form  may  help  another,  and  that  as  a  man  out- 
grows one  form  a  higher  form  is  at  hand  to  take 
its  place. 

Trying  to  force  one's  Religious  Knowledge  and 
Belief  of  a  high  order  upon  those  whom  St.  Paul 
designates  as  babes  in  Christ  is  as  sensible  as  it 
would  be  to  start  a  primary  school  scholar  in  the 
high  school,  which  is  ridiculous  on  the  face  of  it. 

Religion  must  be  faced  and  presented  in  a  com- 
monsense  and  scientific  manner  if  it  is  ever  going 
to  appeal  to  the  masses,  who  are  no  longer  en- 
tirely lacking  in  intelligence  and  education  as  in 
former  days  and  hence  could  be  dictated  to  and 
ordered  about  without  a  mind  of  their  own,  and 
whose  superstition  was  often  played  upon  by  a 
not  always  over-scrupulous  priesthood. 

We  could  here  especially  call  your  attention  to 
a  careful  reading  of  I  Corinthians  III  which  was 
evidently  written  by  the  great  St.  Paul  when  under 
a  high  degree  of  spiritual  exaltation  and  illumina- 
tion. Had  the  early  Christian  Church  grasped  the 
significance  of  the  words  of  wisdom  therein  con- 
tained, it  is  true  there  would  have  resulted  wide 
divergence  of  intellectual  opinion,  but  moral  worth 
and  character  would  have  been  insisted  upon  by 
all.  But  as  soon  as  the  early  church  councils  de- 
cided that  all  men  must  believe  intellectually  alike 
in  certain  dogmas  and  creeds,  placing  these  as  of 


32  Four  Religious  Essays 

more  importance  than  true  moral  worth  and 
character  which  is  bound  to  be  the  outcome  of  all 
True  and  Unselfish  Love  as  lived  and  demon- 
strated by  the  Master,  the  True  Religion  of 
Jesus  rapidly  degenerated  and  became  the  hotbed 
of  theological  and  philosophical  vagaries  many  of 
which  the  masses  of  the  people  could  not  possibly 
grasp  or  understand  any  more  than  can  the  ma- 
jority of  the  masses  to-day. 

In  the  very  early  church  there  seems  to  have 
been  an  exoteric  teaching  given  to  the  masses,  and 
an  esoteric  or  mystical  teaching  given  to  those 
only  who  by  a  righteous  moral  and  spiritual  life 
proved  themselves  fit  for  its  instruction  and  re- 
ception. 

Sin,  as  already  stated,  is  Transgression  of  the 
Law.  Transgression  of  the  Law  is  living  out  of 
Harmony  with  God's  Laws  on  all  planes,  which 
produces  Disharmony,  i.  e.,  Disease. 

Righteousness,  Physical,  Moral,  and  Spiritual, 
is  bringing  our  life  into  Harmony  with  God's 
Laws  on  all  planes,  which  is  Harmony,  i.  e., 
Health. 

The  Religion  of  Jesus  is  the  unfoldment  of  the 
Divine  within  the  Human  or  bringing  the  Human 
into  agreement  with  the  Divine,  but  all  Natural 
and  Universal  Laws  manifest  the  mind  of  God, 
but  God  is  Spirit,  and  God  is  Love,  therefore  he 
who  loves  best  and  wisest  is  most  spiritual,  and 


Love  the  Basis  of  Religious   Unity        33 

naturally  knows  most  of  God  who  is  Infinite  Love, 
and  he  proves  this  love  by  service  to  his  fellow 
men  whom  he  recognizes  as  he  does  himself  as 
the  instruments  through  which  the  Universal 
Spirit  works  and  manifests  itself,  on  this  and  all 
other  planes,  and  so  he  recognizes  Unity  in  variety 
in  all  those  to  whom  the  Master  referred  when  He 
said,  "By  this  shall  all  men  know  that  ye  are  my 
disciples  if  ye  have  love  one  to  another."  He 
recognizes  love  as  the  fulfilling  of  the  Law. 

Dogmas,  Doctrines,  Creeds,  he  will  leave  to 
the  individual  to  decide  which  at  any  time  or 
place  is  most  helpful  to  him  in  the  unfoldment  of 
his  higher  nature,  and  he  will  realize  as  did  St. 
Paul  when  he  said,  "Therefore  let  no  man  glory 
in  man,  for  all  things  are  yours,  whether  Paul,  or 
Apollos,  or  Cephas,  or  the  world,  or  life,  or 
death,  or  things  present,  or  things  to  come,  all  are 
yours,  and  ye  are  Christ's,  and  Christ  is  God's," 
I  Cor.  Ill,  21-23.  The  Universal  Spirit  whom 
we  call  God  is  changeless;  it  is  we,  as  we  progress 
and  evolve,  that  change. 

God  is  as  much  in  His  universe  as  ever.  But 
if  any  Church  or  Christian  Body  fails  to  strive 
earnestly  to  live  up  to  its  highest  ideals  and  re- 
fuses to  grow  or  permit  growth  by  refusing  to 
recognize  the  further  unfoldment  of  truth  as  it  is 
manifested  upon  earth  in  many  and  manifold  ways, 
it  will  become  a  stagnant  and  dead  instead  of  a 


34  Four  Religious  Essays 

living  and  growing  organism  and  will  be  weighed 
in  the  balances  and  found  wanting  as  have  many 
other  forms  of  Religion  in  the  past,  all  of  which 
have  served  a  good  purpose  in  their  day  and 
generation,  and  will  give  place  to  a  higher  form 
that  is  a  Purer  Type  of  Christianity  which, 
figuratively  speaking,  will  be  born  from  it  amidst 
pain  and  tribulation,  but  when  it  comes  to  birth 
will  be  young,  fresh,  vigorous,  and  growing,  and 
fitted  to  the  needs,  requirements  and  mentality, 
including  the  Higher  Spirituality  of  the  New  Age 
now  being  born  from  the  pain  and  pangs  and 
bitter  experiences  and  mistakes  of  the  past. 
Political  Autocracies  are  fast  making  way  for  the 
Higher  Democracies.  Religious  Autocracies  will 
also  in  time  leave  when  the  time  is  ripe  and  they 
have  served  their  purpose  in  the  evolution  of  the 
race,  and  will  give  way  to  a  true  Religious 
Democracy.  The  time  will  come  foretold  by  the 
prophet  Jeremiah  when  he  proclaimed,  "And  they 
shall  teach  no  more  every  man  his  neighbor,  and 
every  man  his  brother,  saying  Know  the  Lord: 
for  they  shall  all  know  me,  from  the  least  of  them 
unto  the  greatest  of  them,  saith  the  Lord;  for  I 
will  forgive  their  iniquity  and  remember  their  sin 
no  more."    Jer.  31-34. 

Until  then  let  us  have  patience  and  trust  in  the 
Infinite  Wisdom  of  our  Spiritual  Father  God,  who 
is  drawing  all  men  unto  Him,  though  in  many 


Love  the  Basis  of  Religious   Unity        35 

and  devious  ways,  by  the  wonderful  example  of 
Divine  Love  and  Self-sacrifice  as  manifested  in 
the  Life  of  Him  whom  all  Christians  nominally 
hail  as  Lord  and  Master,  and  who  said,  "I  if  I 
be  lifted  up  will  draw  all  men  unto  me,"  thus 
proving  and  proclaiming  the  power  of  the  one 
True  and  Universal  Religion  of  Love;  which 
manifests  itself  around  us  in  thousands  of  dif- 
ferent ways,  which  never  conflict,  proving  that 
Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  Law  and  the  only 
Religion  which  none  can  take  exception  to. 


Ill 


DOES    THE     CHURCH     CARE     MORE     FOR    VARIOUS 

THEORIES  OF  THE  TRUTH  THAN  SHE  DOES 

FOR  THE  TRUTH   ITSELF? 

IF  we  were  to  ask  the  ordinary  member  of  the 
church,  or  even  a  minister  of  the  Christian 
Church,  the  question  which  appears  as  the  heading 
of  this  essay,  they  would  probably  answer  without 
any  serious  thought  or  consideration  that  the 
particular  branch  of  the  Christian  Church  with 
which  they  were  connected  stands  for  the  Truth 
itself;  but  the  history  of  the  past  and  a  close  and 
unbiased  observation  will  clearly  prove  that  this 
has  not  been  the  case  in  the  past  nor  is  it  by  any 
means  always  the  case  at  the  present  day. 

Man  in  the  past  according  to  his  development 
and  progress  has  created  ideas  and  theories  about 
God,  The  Absolute,  The  Infinite  and  Eternal 
Energy  and  Intelligence,  and  His  relationship  to 
the  Universe,  in  exact  proportion  to  the  stage  of 
his  development.  It  is  true,  however,  that  there 
have  always  been  those  who  have  been  in  advance 
of  the  age  in  which  they  dwelt  and  when  they  have 

36 


Theories  of  Truth  or  Truth  Itself?        37 

dared  to  express  opinions  and  even  discoveries 
which  conflicted  with  the  prevailing  religious 
tenets  of  their  day  and  generation,  have  been 
branded  as  heretics  and  in  many  instances  have 
suffered  martyrdom  for  the  Truth. 

Look  at  the  constant  conflict  that  in  the  past 
has  existed  between  theology  and  science.  On  this 
particular  subject  we  recommend  "The  Warfare 
Between  Science  and  Theology"  by  Andrew  D. 
White  as  being  well  worth  a  careful  perusal. 

Each  time  that  Science  has  eventually  proved 
the  Truth  she  asserted,  sooner  or  later  the  Church 
has  had  to  alter  her  opinions  along  those  lines, 
and  to  fall  into  line  with  the  Truth,  she  at  first 
so  vigorously  opposed.  Note,  for  instance,  how 
she  treated  the  Copernican  Theory  of  Astronomy, 
and  at  a  much  later  date  the  Theory  of  Evolution; 
to  bear  out  the  truth  of  our  statement  compare 
the  Religious  and  Theological  Books  of  to-day 
with  those  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  ago  and 
mark  well  the  difference  of  opinion  therein  con- 
tained; the  ultra  conservative  of  to-day  would 
then  have  been  considered  as  bordering  on  heresy, 
and  where  would  the  radicals  within  the  Church 
to-day  have  been  placed?  Perhaps  for  the  sake  of 
charity  we  had  better  not  ask  the  question. 

Is  it  not  time  that  the  Christian  Church  should 
come  out  openly  and  boldly,  yes,  and  fearlessly,  as 
the  champion  of  truth  on  all  sides,  and  no  matter 


38  Four  Religious  Essays 

from  what  quarter  or  source  it  may  be  derived, 
should  she  not  forever  cease  to  try  and  champion 
or  even  to  adhere  to  Theories  of  the  Truth  which 
no  matter  how  useful  they  may  have  been  in  the 
past,  have  now  been  outgrown  and  will  not  stand 
the  test  of  the  advanced  knowledge  of  the  present 
day? 

Let  her  acknowledge  that  no  man's  conception 
of  God  can  be  higher  than  the  conception  of  the 
human  medium  incarnate  or  disincarnate  through 
which  it  passes;  let  her  give  Intellectual  Liberty 
to  all  within  the  fold,  encouraging  each  one  to  give 
to  the  world  that  portion  of  the  Truth  which 
his  Divine  Origin  has  implanted  within  them,  to 
be  evolved  without. 

We  claim  that  there  is  but  one  source  and 
origin  of  life — God.  Names  do  not  matter ;  call  it 
if  you  prefer,  The  Universal  Life  or  Energy,  the 
Infinite  Intelligence,  Universal  Mind,  or  the 
Absolute.  After  all  it  is  simply  man's  attempt  to 
give  a  name  to  that  which  he  realizes  but  cannot 
fully  comprehend. 

God  then  being  the  source  and  origin  of  all  life, 
all  men  must  be  divine  and  capable  of  divine  un- 
foldment. 

The  New  Psychology  teaches  us  that  there  are 
three  phases  or  planes  of  the  mind:  the  Subcon- 
scious, the  Conscious  or  Intellectual,  and  the 
Superconscious  or  Spiritual,  and  that  the  Conscious 


'Theories  of  Truth  or  Truth  Itself?        39 

mind  or  Intellect  on  this  earth  plane  is  the  meeting 
place  of  the  subconscious  and  the  superconscious, 
and  that  it  is  through  the  superconscious  or 
spiritual  that  all  inspiration  flows. 

In  the  New  Testament  we  are  told  that  "the 
Pure  in  heart  shall  see  God,"  and  also  that  holy 
men  of  old  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  but  for  some  ridiculous  reason  it  has  been 
taught  or  implied  in  the  past,  that  the  highest 
kind  of  Inspiration  had  ceased,  and  at  the  same 
time  that  the  Deity  is  unchangeable. 

Inspiration  is  just  as  possible  to-day  as  at  any 
other  period  in  the  history  of  the  world,  when 
the  laws  governing  its  operation  are  put  into  mo- 
tion; and  as  man  has  progressed  farther  along  in 
his  evolution  it  ought  if  anything  to  be  of  a  higher 
type  and  kind. 

Jesus,  the  most  perfect  manifestation  of  the 
Divine,  taught  his  disciples  that  they  should  ac- 
complish even  greater  works  than  he  did  when 
the  Spirit  of  Truth  came  upon  them.  It  appears 
to  me  that  the  teaching  of  Jesus  is  plainly  and 
emphatically  that  man  is  divine  and  capable  of 
endless  unfoldment  and  development,  for  his  com- 
mand is  "Ye  shall  be  perfect  even  as  your  Father 
in  heaven  is  perfect,"  and  we  believe  this  state- 
ment of  his  which  so  many  of  those  who  profess 
to  follow  him  apparently  deny. 

The  New  Psychology  teaches  us  the  importance 


40  Four  Religious  Essays 

of  holding  lofty  ideals  and  the  power  of  auto- 
suggestion in  the  building  up  of  a  strong  character, 
"For  as  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart  so  is  he." 
Jesus  taught  and  practised  absolute  loyalty  to  the 
truth  as  the  soul  becomes  conscious  of  it,  by  com- 
ing into  ever  closer  union  with  God,  the  Universal 
Intelligence  and  Truth,  its  divine  source  from 
which  it  cannot  be  separated,  and  in  whom  all 
truth  centres.  The  Cross  according  to  a  true  in- 
terpretation of  the  Gospels  cannot  be  the  emblem 
of  a  substitutionary  sacrifice  to  appease  an  angry 
or  offended  Deity;  angry  or  offended  are  impos- 
sible adjectives  to  place  before  the  Universal 
Beneficence.  An  angry  and  offended  God  to  us 
would  simply  be  nothing  but  an  uncontrolled  and 
finite  human  devil;  these  are  strong  words  but  the 
thought  of  the  Supreme  Ruler  and  Sustainer  of 
the  Universe  being  offended  at  our  mistakes  and 
losing  his  temper  at  our  pitiful  ignorance  makes  a 
cold  shudder  run  down  one's  back,  especially  when 
we  realize  the  Infinite  Love  and  Wisdom  of  the 
Great  Being  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being.  The  Cross  then  becomes  the  emblem 
of  self-sacrifice  and  undying  loyalty  and  devotion 
to  Love  and  Truth,  and  the  truth  was  crucified  by 
those  holding  false  theories  concerning  it,  for  fear 
that  if  its  theories  were  destroyed  its  power  over 
men  would  be  lost.    It  cared  more  for  its  supposed 


Theories  of  Truth  or  Truth  Itself?        41 

truth  than  for  the  truth  itself,  but  Truth  rose 
triumphant. 

As  previously  stated  the  New  Psychology 
teaches  the  importance  of  keeping  constantly  be- 
fore us  high  and  lofty  ideals,  and  the  great  aid, 
to  be  gained  in  giving  expression  to  these,  through 
the  proper  use  of  auto-  or  self-suggestion,  which 
conclusively  proves  that  the  old  Hindoo  teaching 
of  the  repetition  of  lofty  mantrams  or  short 
sentences,  has  a  beneficent  result  in  the  develop- 
ment of  human  character;  as  the  ideals  thus  ex- 
pressed are  impressed  upon  the  subconscious  mind 
which  will  eventually  bring  them  out  upon  the 
plane  of  objective  life. 

Does  the  Church  care  more  for  the  Truth  itself 
than  certain  old  theories  concerning  the  truth? 
In  asking  this  question  we  do  not  wish  to  be  re- 
garded as  in  any  sense  scorning  or  despising  these 
old  theories  nor  to  be  understood  as  asserting  that 
they  have  done  no  good  in  the  past,  but  when  old 
theories  have  been  outgrown  and  found  to  be 
deficient  we  should  not  cling  to  them  for  the  sake 
of  past  associations  or  mere  sentiment,  but  should 
willingly  lay  them  aside  and  make  room  for  the 
fuller  revelations  that  must  in  due  time  supplant 
them.  We  should  keep  our  minds  in  a  receptive 
state.  By  repeated  auto-suggestion  even  of  that 
which  is  false  we  clog  the  mind  with  false  im- 


42  Four  Religious  Essays 

pressions,  and  make  it  very  difficult  for  it  to  lay 
aside  error  and  accept  truth. 

The  Roman  Church  either  consciously  or  un- 
consciously puts  into  practice  the  law  of  sugges- 
tion, when  it  claims  if  it  has  complete  control  of  a 
child  up  to  the  seventh  year  it  will  seldom,  if  ordi- 
nary care  is  taken,  ever  leave  the  church;  it  also 
prohibits  the  mind  from  receiving  contrary  sug- 
gestions until  its  ideas  are  deeply  rooted  and  im- 
pressed and  hence  extremely  difficult  to  eradicate. 

To  a  certain  extent  this  is  true  of  all  religious 
bodies  and  is  the  reason  why  we  find  so  many  in 
our  churches  simply  because  their  parents  were 
there  before  them  and  they  have  been  brought  up 
in  that  way  and  take  things  more  or  less  for 
granted  that  have  been  impressed  upon  them  dur- 
ing their  early  life,  by  the  laws  of  suggestion  and 
auto-suggestion. 

Jesus  said,  "If  ye  would  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  God  ye  must  become  as  little  children";  that  is, 
we  must  empty  our  minds  of  all  preconceived  ideas 
and  hold  the  receptive  state  of  mind,  which  is 
willing  to  examine  truth  from  all  sides  and  com- 
pare all  opinions,  drawing  our  own  conclusions, 
ever  keeping  the  spiritual  faculty  of  intuition  free 
and  clear  for  fuller  revelations  of  truth  from  the 
source  of  all  Truth  that  Universal  Spirit  of  the 
Infinite  Intelligence  God. 

We  believe  that  many  who  have  shaken  off  the 


Theories  of  Truth  or  Truth  Itself?        43 

shackles  of  mental  slavery  are  hindered  from  at- 
tending our  services  and  keep  aloof  from  our 
Churches,  causing  the  Church  to  ask  that  question 
which  has  become  almost  a  proverbial  saying  at 
the  present  day,  namely,  "Why  do  not  people  go 
to  church?"  which  to  some  extent  we  think  may 
be  answered  by  saying  that  a  great  many  people 
have  outgrown  our  forms  of  expression  and  not 
as  yet  being  able  or  willing,  during  a  transition 
period,  to  reconcile  themselves  to  use  the  old  form 
of  words  as  symbols  or  in  a  poetical  sense,  they 
stay  away  rather  than  repeat  or  hear  repeated 
what  literally  they  cannot  fully  accept,  perhaps 
forgetting  that  the  letter  killeth  but  the  spirit 
giveth  life;  they  then  stay  away  altogether  and 
are  often  misjudged  by  those  who  cannot  under- 
stand or  grasp  their  mental  attitude. 

A  good  woman  not  long  ago  told  us  that  she 
could  not  bear  to  go  to  the  Litany  Service  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  because  she  did  not 
believe  in  calling  herself  a  miserable  sinner — a 
somewhat  dangerous  assertion,  so  we  think  when 
we  remember  the  great  power  of  auto-suggestion; 
she  further  added  that  she  did  not  feel  miserable 
and  recognized  the  Divine  Goodness  in  all  His 
works. 

When  we  seriously  come  to  think  of  it,  it  cer- 
tainly is  not  a  compliment  to  the  Author  of  our 
being  to  belittle  the  highest  forms  of  life  through 


44  Four  Religious  Essays 

which  He  manifests  Himself  upon  earth,  by  call- 
ing them  miserable  sinners,  worms,  etc.  An  igno- 
rant sinner  desirous  of  further  light  and  develop- 
ment so  as  to  be  of  greater  use  to  the  world  in 
cooperating  with  the  divine  plan  of  progress  and 
evolution  would  appear  to  be  more  to  the  point 
with  our  present  knowledge  and  plane  of  develop- 
ment. 

Christ  stands  for  the  Universal  Spirit  of  Truth 
most  perfectly  manifested  in  Jesus,  the  Logos, 
Word,  Thought  or  Truth  of  God.  The  Church 
theoretically  stands  for  Jesus,  but  Jesus  is  "the 
Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life."  These  things  are 
manifested  in  and  through  him,  to  be  manifested 
in  and  through  us,  but  as  said  the  Church  stands 
for  Jesus,  therefore  for  the  Truth  itself,  and  not 
for  any  particular  theory  of  the  truth  whether  of 
the  first,  fourth,  sixteenth,  or  any  other  century. 
She  claims  to  be  Catholic,  that  is,  Universal,  that 
is  all-inclusive,  therefore  if  she  is  to  be  true  to  her 
name  she  must  incorporate  truth  from  all  sources 
and  be  ready  whenever  she  finds  a  certain  ancient 
theory  to  be  lacking,  to  supplant  it  with  one  that 
can  be  established  on  a  firmer  basis,  by  the  further 
light,  knowledge,  and  methods  of  the  twentieth 
century;  she  must  ever  stand  out  boldly  as  a  Living 
Church  with  a  Living  Message,  she  must  recog- 
nize the  divinity  of  man,  and  the  right  of  that  man 
who  by  a  holy  life  and  purpose  high  is  ever  open 


Theories  of  Truth  or  Truth  Itself?        45 

to  the  voice  of  intuition  and  to  the  higher  worlds, 
coming  into  touch  with  the  cosmic  consciousness 
from  which  he  can  receive  knowledge  by  having 
developed  his  latent  psychic  and  spiritual  faculties 
resulting  in  the  unfoldment  of  his  spiritual  con- 
sciousness. 

The  Living  Church  cannot  afford,  like  so  many 
other  so-called  divine  institutions  in  the  past,  to 
cling  to  pet  theories  and  expressions  of  what  was 
once  regarded  as  true  and  beneficent,  as  by  so 
doing  she  will  cease  to  live  and  finally  become 
dead. 

Can  any  serious  and  thoughtful  man  or  woman 
help  but  realize  that  there  is  even  now  a  New 
Heaven  and  a  New  Earth  to  that  which  was  in 
existence  a  hundred  years  ago?  Look  at  the  in- 
ventions of  the  last  century  and  those  of  the  last 
few  years  and  how  entirely  physical  conditions 
upon  the  earth  have  been  renewed  what  with  the 
various  uses  of  steam  and  electricity,  also  the  ad- 
vance in  chemistry  and  in  medical  knowledge,  in 
fact  in  all  departments  of  science. 

If  we  read  the  views  on  heaven  and  hell  as 
written  and  proclaimed  a  hundred  years  back  and 
compare  them  with  those  now  written  and 
preached,  such  as  eternal  hope,  eternal  progres- 
sion and  so  forth,  what  a  tremendous  change  we 
are  confronted  with. 

It  appears  to  us  if  we  are  to  be  true  to  the 


46  Four  Religious  Essays 

Christ,  that  is  to  the  manifestation  of  the  truth 
in  Jesus,  so  we  must  also  be  true  to  the  Christ, 
that  is,  the  divine  within  ourselves  which  is  con- 
stantly being  unfolded,  individually  and  collective- 
ly in  the  world;  and  if  the  old  Historic  Church  is 
not  to  be  weighed  in  the  balances  and  found  want- 
ing she  must  always  place  truth  first  and  foremost 
not  only  theoretically  but  practically.  Her  teach- 
ings concerning  the  truth  must  bear  the  scrutiny 
and  test  of  all  the  so-called  sciences;  true,  she  may 
proclaim  things  higher  than  those  generally  ac- 
cepted by  but  nothing  contrary  to  reason.  She 
must  be  the  leader  in  a  True  Spiritual  Science  if 
she  is  to  hold  the  reverence  and  respect  of  all 
seriously  minded  and  deeply  thinking  men  and 
women;  she  must  place  Truth  and  the  Goodness 
that  alone  can  come  from  the  truth,  above  every- 
thing and  not  insist  upon  any  pet  theory  or 
theories  concerning  the  truth,  some  of  which  have 
already  been  proved  to  be  wrong  conclusions  and 
abandoned  and  others  which  as  yet  are  still  open 
questions. 

She  must  as  the  Master  said  become  as  a  little 
child,  that  is  lay  aside  all  self-conceived  and  preju- 
diced ideas  and  be  open  and  receptive  to  the  Uni- 
versal Spirit  of  Truth  which  in  the  aeons  to  come 
is  to  guide  us  by  slow  but  sure  methods  of  evolu- 
tion, and  growth,  and  progress  into  all  Truth. 

In  this  growth  she  must  learn  to  be  inclusive, 


Theories  of  Truth  or  Truth  Itself?        47 

not  exclusive,  Catholic  in  its  old  original  sense  of 
Universal,  ever  ready  and  willing  to  embrace  and 
to  incorporate  The  Good,  The  Beautiful,  and  True 
from  every  source,  recognizing  that  there  is  but 
One  God  and  Father.  We  care  not  to  quibble  over 
names,  call  it  if  you  prefer,  The  Universal  In- 
telligence, Universal  Energy,  Spirit,  The  Absolute, 
or  The  Infinite  Source  of  Being,  which  is  above 
all,  through  all,  and  in  you  all,  ever  guiding,  di- 
recting and  leading  us,  if  we  allow  the  promptings 
of  the  Spirit  by  a  pure  and  exalted  life  to  work  in 
and  through  us  for  the  universal  good  of  hu- 
manity. 

Once  more  we  ask,  does  the  Church  love  truth 
for  itself  or  certain  pet  theories  of  the  Truth? 
Our  unbiased  answer  is — 

In  the  past  she  often  loved  her  theories  best. 
In  the  present  she  is  not  always  wholly  decided. 
In  the  future  Truth  will  win  and  she  will  be  the 
champion  of  the  Eternal  Truth.  A  glorious  herit- 
age is  before  her  as  she  allows  herself  to  be  guided 
by  the  Spirit  of  Truth  which  is  to  lead  mankind 
into  all  truth. 

But  in  the  meantime  in  the  words  of  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  which  we  quote  as  follows : 

"Pioneers  must  expect  hard  knocks,  the  mind 
of  a  people  cannot  change  only  slowly.  Until  the 
mind  of  a  people  is  changed,  new  truths  born  be- 
fore their  time  must  suffer  the  fate  of  other  un- 


48  Four  Religious  Essays 

timely  births;  and  the  prophet  who  preaches  them 
must  expect  to  be  mistaken  for  a  useless  fanatic, 
of  whom  every  age  has  always  had  too  many,  must 
be  content  to  be  literally  or  metaphorically  put  to 
death,  as  part  of  the  process  of  the  regeneration 
of  the  world." 

In  closing  we  would  state  that  in  our  inmost 
being  we  realize  that  the  Truth  Itself  and  Truth 
alone  must  and  shall  prevail,  and  it  will  be  loved 
for  its  own  sake  and  for  the  good  which  always 
follows  strict  obedience  to  her  laws  as  they  are 
unfolded  one  by  one.  The  true  disciple  of  Jesus, 
that  most  profoundly  divine  Master  and  Teacher, 
knows  "that  where  the  Spirit  of  Christ  is,  there 
is  Liberty." 


IV 

THE   DIVINITY  OF   MAN 

DIVINE  Humanity,  Man  Divine;  wondrous 
thought,  yea,  rather  important  but  neglected 
truth.  How  little  understood,  how  little  compre- 
hended, by  how  many  realized?  by  how  few  fully 
grasped  with  all  that  it  contains  and  signifies? 
For  Humanity  being  Divine,  then  mankind  par- 
takes of  the  essence  and  nature  of  God,  and  thus 
every  man  and  woman  is  a  god  or  goddess  in  the 
making.  Says  the  Apostle,  "there  is  One  God  and 
Father  of  all,  who  is  above  all,  through  all,  and 
in  you  all,  and  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  beings";  yet  how  many  believe  and  real- 
ize it.  Yea!  How  many  can  affirm,  I  know  it;  yet 
it  is  undoubtedly  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  the  Christ, 
the  great  spiritual  teacher,  master  and  instructor 
to  whom  all  nominal  Christians  profess  their 
allegiance. 

A  certain  writer  has  said,  "That  the  History  of 
all  Dogmatic  and  Revealed  Religion  is  in  Truth 
but  a  history  of  man's  endeavors  to  discover  and 
invent  some  plan  or  scheme  or  method  whereby  he 

49 


50  Four  Religious  Essays 

may  shirk  his  Personal  Responsibility,  or  shift  it 
to  other  shoulders  than  his  own,  or  in  some  man- 
ner escape  the  natural  consequences  of  its  con- 
scious and  intentional  evasion  or  violation."    That 
these  words  are  undoubtedly  founded  on  a  true 
statement  of  the  facts  cannot  be  doubted  or  denied 
by  any  earnest  seeker  after  truth,  and  that  it  is 
exactly  opposite  to  the  unadulterated  truth  taught 
by  Jesus,  the  Christ,  is  also  self-evident  to  anyone 
who   carefully    studies    his    words    and   teaching. 
That  the  words  of  the  Master  have  time  and  again 
been  twisted  and  turned  until  they  have  been  made 
to  coincide  or  take  the  place  of  certain  prevalent 
ideas  of  paganism  is  something  which  any  careful 
student  of  the  history  of  the  past  cannot  help,  if 
he  is  unbiased,  having  forced  upon  his  attention. 
Man,  from  the  earliest  times  of  which  we  have 
any    records    concerning   him,    appears    to    have 
sooner  or  later  recognized  that  whenever  he  did 
certain  things  which  he  intuitively  felt  that  he 
ought  not  to  commit,  he  invariably  suffered  ac- 
cordingly, and  also  that  whenever  he  came  into 
conflict     or     opposition     with     certain     physical 
phenomena  he  also  suffered;   from  this  he  con- 
cluded that  there  was  some  great  power  or  powers 
over  which  he  had  no  control  and  with  which  he 
clothed  in  his  imagination  with  a  personality  and 
like  passions  with  himself,  only  all-powerful,  and 
whom,  like  himself,  he  also  imagined  could  be  ap- 


The  Divinity  of  Man  51 

peased  or  bribed  by  various  offerings  and  gifts; 
hence  the  idea  of  offering  pacific  sacrifices  to  ap- 
pease an  angry  and  arbitrary  deity  who  dwelt  out- 
side and  above  his  world:  however,  as  man  came 
to  be  more  highly  developed,  and  as  his  higher  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  faculties  in  due  time  un- 
folded, higher  and  worthier  ideas  of  deity  sprang 
up.     All  ages  and  climes  seem  to  have  had  their 
prophets  and  seers  many  years  in  advance  of  the 
age  in  which  they  lived.     We  have  for  instance 
such  men  as  Confucius,  Zoroaster,   Buddha  and 
also  many  of  the  Hebrew  Prophets,  whose  concep- 
tions of  God  were  far  in  advance  of  their  day  and 
generation,  all  of  whose  teachings  have  been  more 
or  less  corrupted  from  their  original  purity  by 
the    majority    of    those    professing    to    be    their 
disciples  and  followers.     Finally  one  greater  than 
all   arose   whose  teachings   have  been  gradually 
revolutionizing  the  world,  and  when  they  are  more 
clearly  and  thoroughly  grasped  and  comprehended 
will  do  even  more  than  in  the  past.  We,  of  course, 
allude  to  Jesus,  the  Christ,  the  greatest  spiritual 
teacher,  instructor  and  master  that  has  dwelt  upon 
this  earth,  but  whose  teaching  has  also  been  most 
terribly  corrupted  and  misunderstood;  in  fact,  a 
great  deal  that  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a 
modified   form  of  paganism  goes  under  the   as- 
sumed name  of  Christianity;  the  great  leaders  of 
the  pagan  world,  when  they  found  that  they  could 


52  Four  Religious  Essays 

no  longer  stem  the  tide  of  Christian  truth,  which 
was  rapidly  losing  them  their  hold  upon  the 
populace,  sagaciously  and  shrewdly  compromised 
by  professing  to  incorporate  it  into  their  system, 
and  to  some  extent,  by  substituting  names  and 
terms,  they  practically  saved  a  number  of  pagan 
dogmas  by  clothing  them  with  Christian  names. 
Among  other  things,  the  death  of  the  Master, 
brought  about  by  his  undying  loyalty  to  righteous- 
ness and  truth,  was  made  into  a  sacrifice  for  the 
propitiation  first  of  an  angry  Satan  and  later  of 
an  angry  and  offended  God,  and  offered  as  a  substi- 
tute for  the  shortcomings  of  man. 

The  Church  assumed  the  right  of  dispensing 
salvation,  or  not,  as  it  saw  fit,  upon  certain  con- 
ditions and  not  infrequently  for  a  monetary  con- 
sideration, to  help  fill  her  coffers.  Personal  re- 
sponsibility was  admitted  as  it  must  be,  for  it  is 
inherent  in  humanity,  but  all  kinds  of  means  were 
adopted  by  the  church,  for  the  sake  of  power  and 
worldly  advantage,  to  take  the  place  of  that  per- 
sonal responsibility;  and  this  has  often  been  so 
cleverly  and  artfully  done  that  many  have  failed 
to  see  through  the  various  perversions  which  so 
many  of  the  Christian  denominations  have  made 
of  the  words  and  teaching  of  our  Holy  Lord  and 
Master,  Jesus  the  Christ. 

Let  us  compare  a  few  of  the  things  which  have 
been  taught  in  the  name  of  the  Master  with  what 


The  Divinity  of  Man  53 

he  actually  taught.  So-called  Christianity  has 
taught  and  in  some  instances  still  teaches  "The 
Total  Depravity  of  Man."  Jesus  taught  the 
Divinity  of  Man:  One  is  your  Father  which  is  in 
Heaven,  and  all  ye  are  brethren,  words  addressed 
to  a  mixed  multitude. 

So-called  Christianity  has  taught  that  God  must 
be  appeased  because  he  is  angry  with  man  because 
man  sins.  Jesus  has  taught  that  God  is  a  loving 
and  righteous  Father  who  sends  his  sunshine  and 
rain  on  the  just  and  unjust,  and  longs  for  the  re- 
turn of  the  prodigal,  because  he  loves  man  and 
hates  sin,  as  sin  is  the  transgression  of  his  wise 
and  beneficent  laws,  which  transgression  unavoid- 
ably brings  suffering  which  is  for  man's  good,  to 
direct  him  into  the  paths  of  rectitude. 

So-called  Christianity  has  taught  that  Jesus  in 
some  way  or  another  has  made  atonement  to  God 
for  the  sins  of  mankind,  and  that  if  man  accepts 
him  in  this  light  which  they  teach,  which  varies 
considerably,  according  to  the  denomination  or 
the  individual  expounding  it  (there  having  been 
some  eighteen  or  more  different  theories  on  this 
particular  topic),  he  will  be  saved  from  future 
punishment.  Jesus  has  taught  that  man  can  only 
be  saved  from  the  penalty  of  sin  by  giving  up 
sinning,  the  penalty  for  the  transgression  of  the 
law  following,  as  effect  follows  its  cause.  Said  he, 
"Go  and  sin  no  more";  "Ye  shall  be  perfect  even 


54  Four  Religious  Essays 

as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect";  the 
ideal  he  holds  out  to  man,  if  they  follow  him,  is 
the  Divine  Perfection.  Again,  "Not  every  one 
that  saith  unto  me,  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  but  he  that  doeth  the 
will  of  my  Father  who  is  in  Heaven." 

The  Christian  Church  has  largely,  and  especial- 
ly in  the  past,  taught  a  God  external  to  and  away 
up  above  his  world,  a  sort  of  arbitrary  monarch. 
Jesus  has  taught  a  God  within  his  world,  especially 
within  the  soul  of  man.  Says  he,  "The  Kingdom 
of  God  is  within  you."  Again,  "Is  it  not  written  in 
your  law,  I  said  ye  are  gods?"  If  he  called  them 
Gods  unto  whom  the  word  of  God  came,  and  the 
scriptures  cannot  be  broken.  It  is  therefore  plain 
enough  to  the  man  or  woman  who  has  the  courage 
to  earnestly  pray  for  the  truth  and  the  courage  to 
seek  it  with  unprejudiced  and  unbiased  mind,  be- 
coming, as  the  Master  said,  in  this  respect  as  little 
children,  ever  ready  to  learn  from  all  sources,  that 
a  great  deal  of  what  has  been  given  forth  to  the 
world  as  the  religion  of  Jesus,  the  Christ,  is  quite 
often  the  very  reverse.  No  doubt  there  is  a  truth 
underlying  it,  but  the  truth  has  been  many  times 
perverted,  and  most  assuredly  every  honest  and 
self-respecting  man  has  a  right  to  ask  himself,  and 
then  try  and  answer  the  question,  What  is  the  key- 
note of  true  Christianity,  a  Christianity  upon 
which  all  might  unite  and  at  the  same  time  give  up 


The  Divinity  of  Man  55 

nothing  of  personal  value  to  himself  in  the  way 
of  dogma  or  doctrine,  and  which  can  never  be  until 
all  men  have  learnt  to  love  the  Truth  for  its  own 
sake,  and  to  recognize  its  infinite  modes  of  ex- 
pression, loving  the  Truth  for  Truth's  sake  far 
more  than  their  own  pet  theories  and  dogmas  and 
doctrines  about  it;  ever  distinguishing  Truth  from 
Man's  manifold  attempts  at  its  explanation.  We 
can  all  believe  in  a  Universal  Intelligence  which  is 
manifesting  itself  throughout  the  universe  in  a 
thousand  different  ways,  and  hence  which  is  the 
Universal  Father  of  all,  and  as  the  Father  of  all 
it  brings  us  into  touch  with  all  creation  and  forces 
us  to  recognize  all  men  as  brothers  and  of  one 
divine  origin,  and  hence  divine,  with  marvellous 
latent  capacities,  waiting  by  obedience  to  the  laws 
of  this  Universal  Intelligence  God,  to  be  unfolded 
and  developed. 

This  realization  will  leave  all  intellectual  con- 
ceptions free  to  the  Individual.  Experience  and 
time  will  prove  which  are  truly  in  accordance  with 
the  laws  of  God.  The  moment  you  undertake  to 
force  a  certain  interpretation  of  some  portion  of 
Truth  (for  Truth  itself  is  infinite  and  capable  of 
infinite  unfoldment)  upon  a  set  of  men,  making 
that  a  standard  of  membership,  you  are  founding 
an  institution,  in  so  far  as  it  contains  truth,  divine: 
in  so  far  as  it  contains  error,  human:  and  who  will 
dare  to  claim  all  truth,  and  make  themselves  equal 


56  Four  Religious  Essays 

with  the  Universal  Intelligence:  hence  all  denomi- 
nations in  this  light  can  be  looked  upon  as  both 
human  and  divine  in  origin,  and  when  this  is  recog- 
nized, a  great  step  towards  unity  will  be  gained. 

Jesus  earnestly  endeavored  to  teach  all  those 
whom  he  addressed  to  realize  the  divinity  within 
and  to  unfold  it,  and  so  become  conscious  of  their 
union  with  God  who  is  not  only  above  us,  but  also 
within  us,  for  the  Father  incarnates  himself  in  all 
his  works,  and  no  man  can  possibly  understand 
more  of  God  than  he  has  unfolded  within  himself, 
or  seen  unfolded  in  some  other  fellow  man,  which 
responds  to  something  higher  within  himself, 
which  he  has  not  yet  unfolded  and  reached,  for 
we  only  truly  know  those  things  which  we  have 
made  part  of  ourselves:  in  fact,  no  man  really 
knows  any  other,  he  only  knows  his  idea  of  that 
other  which  may  or  may  not  be  correct.  In  fact, 
when  we  know  ourselves  so  little,  how  can  we  pre- 
sume to  know  others:  in  fact,  the  more  fully  we 
know,  understand  and  comprehend  ourselves,  the 
better  we  can  comprehend  others.  Say  what  you 
will,  no  two  men  have  the  same  opinion  of  or 
know  their  mutual  friends  in  the  same  way.  In 
brief,  we  know  nothing  except  that  of  which  the 
Individual  Soul  is  in  some  sense  conscious. 

How,  therefore,  in  all  reason  can  we  expect  any 
two  men  or  bodies  of  men  to  have  any  fast  or 
bound  rules  as  to  the  knowledge  of  God?     All  the 


The  Divinity  of  Man  57 

laws  of  Nature  on  all  planes  of  existence  that  we 
know  and  become  self-conscious  of,  teach  us  some- 
thing concerning  the  ways  of  the  Universal  In- 
telligence; by  bringing  ourselves  into  harmony 
with  them,  we  unfold  the  Divine  within  us,  and  all 
is  well;  we  are  then  living  according  to  the  Con- 
structive Principle  of  Nature.  When  we  put  our- 
selves in  opposition  to  these  laws,  all  of  which  are 
beneficent  when  properly  used,  we  are  then  fol- 
lowing the  Destructive  Principle  of  Nature,  and 
suffer  accordingly:  and  by  Nature  we  do  not  only 
mean  Physical  Laws,  but  Spiritual  and  Psychic 
Laws. 

But  Man  having  a  Divine  Heredity  from  God 
can  unfold  his  nature  so  as  not  only  to  grasp 
physical  laws  and  their  results,  but  also  Spiritual 
and  Psychic  Laws  and  their  results. 

By  strict  obedience  to  Physical,  Spiritual  and 
Psychic  Law  we  grow  and  unfold :  those  who  know 
more  than  we  do  can  teach,  but  we  must  make 
that  teaching  part  of  ourselves  by  following  the 
path  laid  out,  so  as  to  make  it  part  of  ourselves. 
But  what  of  the  ignorant  who  have  not  the  ad- 
vantage of  an  instructor?  No  man  is  so  ignorant 
but  that  he  has  some  sort  of  a  conscience.  Jesus 
taught  men  that  they  must  obey  this  voice  of  con- 
science which  is  intuitive.  Wilful  disobedience  to 
this  higher  Divine  voice  is  blasphemy  against  the 
Holy  Ghost,  which  cannot  be  forgiven,  and  which 


58  Four  Religious  Essays 

causes  so  much  sin  and  misery.  Man  cannot  shirk 
his  personal  responsibility  and  escape  the  penalty. 
There  is  no  legitimate  way  for  him  to  avoid  his 
duty,  and  to  do  his  best  according  to  the  present 
stage  of  his  development. 

One  reason  why  man  makes  so  little  effort  is 
undoubtedly  from  the  fact  that  in  the  past  it  has 
been  so  universally  taught  that  man  is  a  poor, 
miserable,  depraved,  creature,  incapable  of  doing 
any  good  of  himself,  instead  of  being  taught  that 
he  is  a  divine  son  of  God,  and  that  if  he  claims  it, 
he  has  within  him  a  latent  divine  power  that  will 
enable  him  to  overcome  his  shortcomings.  He 
must  pray  to  God  with  all  his  strength  to  unfold 
the  God  within,  and  he  must  appeal  to  all  that  is 
best  and  Godlike  within  to  overcome  the  excesses 
of  his  lower  and  carnal  nature,  and  in  doing  this 
he  must  recognize  his  latent  will  power,  and  once 
and  for  all  cease  to  say  that  it  is  impossible,  for 
with  God  within  and  God  without,  according  to 
the  Master,  Jesus,  all  things  are  possible  to  him 
that  believeth.  According  to  much  of  the  teach- 
ing of  the  past,  men  don't  believe  and  hence  don't 
try — this,  with  a  lurking  belief  that  they  can  make 
some  sort  of  substitutionary  plea  or  offset,  is  half 
the  trouble;  let  them  by  self-control  and  complete 
mastery  over  self  become  conscious  of  their  union 
with  God,  as  did  our  Lord  and  Master,  and  then 
the  so-called  impossible  will  become  possible,  and 


The  Divinity  of  Man  59 

the  lower  will  give  place  by  obedience  to  Natural 
Law  to  the  Higher  and  Divine  that  is  waiting 
within  to  be  recognized  and  made  one,  by  being 
brought  onto  the  plane  of  self-consciousness.  So 
long  as  we  disobey  the  laws  of  Nature  and  Na- 
ture's God,  so  long  must  we  suffer  until  by  bitter 
experience,  and  for  our  own  final  good,  we  learn 
to  bring  our  lives  into  proper  Harmonic  Relation- 
ships. 

The  whole  teaching  of  Jesus  appears  to  me  to 
impress  upon  man  his  latent  divinity,  and  is  a 
direct  appeal  to  him  to  unfold  it,  pointing  out  the 
blessings  that  follow  the  unfoldment,  and  the  suf- 
fering that  ensues  from  not  bringing  our  lives  into 
conformity  with  the  higher  laws  of  our  being. 

He  seems  to  me  to  teach  that  having  mastered 
self  and  selfishness,  having  gained  perfect  mastery 
and  self-control  over  our  lower  selves,  we  could 
then  prove  not  only  by  our  teaching,  but  by  our 
lives  and  examples — no  matter  what  our  vocation 
may  be — that  the  Christ  life  is  possible,  and  that 
we  should  urge  others  to  also  unfold  the  Christ 
within. 

The  Religion  of  Jesus  thus  becomes  a  life.  It 
is  biological  far  more  than  theological;  it  is  a  life 
of  service  to  humanity  by  obedience  to  the  Laws 
of  Nature  and  Nature's  God,  a  recognition  of  the 
Spiritual  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  Spiritual 
Brotherhood  of  Humanity  on  account  of  our  com- 


60  Four  Religious  Essays 

mon  origin  from  God:  it  is  a  life  of  a  gradual 
divine  unfoldment  and  growth,  in  accordance  with 
strict  obedience  to  the  known  laws  of  the  Uni- 
versal Intelligence,  which  are  being  better  under- 
stood as  mankind  is  more  fully  and  perfectly  de- 
veloped. 

In  all  ages  there  are  those  in  advance  who  have 
reached  the  stage  of  conscious  union  with  God 
and  more  perfectly  understand  all  that  it  means 
and  conveys.  That  man  is  divine,  that  man  is  an 
Individualized,  Finited  God  in  the  making,  in 
whom  are  latent  divine  powers  which  he  receives 
from  his  Universal  Father,  ever  waiting  to  be  un- 
folded and  recognized,  and  when  recognized 
brings  him  into  true  relationship  with  his  spiritual 
Father,  God,  and  into  proper  relationship  to  his 
brother,  man. 

This  is  the  message  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  it  is 
the  message  of  our  adorable  Lord  and  Master, 
which  more  than  any  other  is  needed  at  the  present 
day. 

Religion  as  taught  in  the  past  has  been  too  me- 
chanical, too  much  a  plan  of  salvation  from  the 
consequence  of  sin;  God  too  much  of  a  big  arbi- 
trary monarch  on  a  throne,  altogether  too  earthly, 
too  small  for  the  seriously  minded  of  the  present 
day  to  love  and  revere.  Jesus,  our  Lord  and 
Master,  has  been  paganized  too  much  into  a  sub- 
stitutionary  offering,    so    as   to    excuse   man    for 


The  Divinity  of  Man  61 

sinning,  instead  of  being  the  Way,  the  Truth  and 
the  Life  whose  Spirit  we  must  incorporate  into  our 
very  beings,  and  make  part  of  ourselves. 

What  God  or  the  Universal  Intelligence  is  in 
himself  we  never  can  tell.  The  God  of  Nature  is 
in  all  his  works  on  all  planes  of  existence.  What 
he  is  in  his  works  and  in  ourselves  we  can  learn 
and  know  ever  more  and  more  fully:  what  he  is 
above  all  these  things  is  beyond  our  limited  com- 
prehension.   Let  us  leave  it  alone. 

Let  men  obey  the  Master  and  seek  the  kingdom 
of  God  within,  and  so  unfold  their  latent  divinity; 
let  them  bravely  meet  their  Personal  Responsi- 
bility; let  them  be  ashamed  to  try  and  find  excuses 
or  scapegoats  for  their  shortcomings  in  their  Re- 
ligion or  anything  else. 

The  Religion  of  Jesus  is  a  life  of  usefulness, 
obedience  to  the  voice  of  conscience,  doing  our  best 
each  day,  increasing  our  knowledge  of  God's  laws; 
not  simply  to  believe  them,  but  to  know  and  then 
to  obey  and  to  do  them.  The  mere  intellectual  be- 
lief in  anything,  alone,  will  not  help  us.  It  is  in 
the  doing  of  the  law,  or  in  the  bringing  of  our 
lives  into  conformity  with  it,  that  man  is  blest. 
Said  the  Master,  "If  any  man  will  do  God's  will, 
he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of 
God  or  whether  I  speak  of  myself;"  and  again, 
"If  ye  know  these  things,  happy  are  ye,  if  ye  do 
them." 


62  Four  Religious  Essays 

The  Religion  of  Jesus  gives  fair  play  to  all 
moral,  intellectual  conceptions  concerning  God. 

All  intellectual  conceptions  concerning  Religion 
or  any  of  God's  laws,  in  so  far  as  they  help  a  man 
to  be  more  like  Christ  (which  implies  obedience  to 
all  the  laws  of  nature  with  which  he  is  at  the  time 
conscious — that  means  conceptions  which  are  help- 
ing him  to  unfold  his  divinity) ,  are  the  best  for  his 
present  stage  of  development  until  he  himself,  by 
instruction  and  research,  freely  supplants  them 
with  a  higher  intellectual  conception,  which  he  sees 
is  going  to  be  of  greater  assistance  to  him  in  his 
future  growth  and  development. 

It  is  a  wise  thing  to  supplant  a  good  thing  with 
a  better,  but  a  foolish  thing  to  despise  a  good  thing 
which  has  been  of  value  but  outgrown. 

We  should  deprive  no  man  of  anything  that 
helps  him  to  live  nearer  to  God  and  to  goodness. 
But  all  those  things  which  man  makes  use  of  as 
substitutes  for  his  personal  responsibility  to  God 
and  Man,  even  though  he  claims  them  as  part  of 
his  religion,  vainly  deceiving  himself  that  they 
will  take  the  place  of  living  a  life  in  accordance 
with  the  spirit  of  the  Master.  These  we  ought  to 
try  to  destroy  as  idols  of  a  vain  delusion,  danger- 
ous to  the  holder,  and  to  all  those  whom  he  might 
influence  in  like  manner,  and  as  a  grave  menace 
to  the  morals  of  the  Race ;  for  in  plain  words,  they 


The  Divinity  of  Man  63 

are  vile  excuses  for  the  shirking  of  Duty  and  a 
direct  refusal  to  work  out  their  own  salvation 
through  the  unfoldment  of  the  divine  within,  by 
following  in  the  footsteps  of  him  who  said,  "Not 
every  one  that  saith  unto  me,  Lord,  Lord,  shall 
enter  into  the  knigdom  of  heaven,  but  he  who 
doeth  the  will  of  my  Father  who  is  in  heaven." 

Thus  we  see  that  the  Religion  of  Jesus  is  em- 
phatically a  life  and  not  a  mere  intellectual  con- 
ception   of   any   particular    scheme   of   salvation. 
Until  this  fact  is  fully  recognized  many  thoughtful 
and  truly  sincere  men  and  women  will  hold  aloof 
from  connection  with  any  religious  body  that  in- 
sists on  a  scheme  of  salvation  and  not  a  life  of 
divine  unfoldment  according  to  the  laws  of  God, 
leaving  their  intellects  free  as  to  their  individual 
conceptions   concerning  the   nature   of   God,   our 
Lord,  and  dogmas  in  general,  some  of  which  are 
the  accretions  of  a  later  day  than  that  of  when  our 
Lord  ministered  upon  earth,  and  some  of  which 
are  pagan  in  origin,  and  which  may  have  served 
their  purpose  in  a  day  and  generation  when  ideals 
morally  and  spiritually  were  at  a  lower  ebb  but 
which  are  now  gradually  being  outgrown. 

The  divinity  of  man  and  the  best  methods  for 
its  unfoldment  by  applying  the  principles  of  the 
Master  according  to  the  various  temperaments  of 
the  individual  are  the  most  important  questions 


64  Four  Religious  Essays 

with  which  the  church  must  grapple;  if  not  now, 
at  all  events  in  the  near  future. 

Each  child,  being  divine  and  also  individualized, 
if  taught  to  unfold  its  latent  divinity  from  earliest 
childhood  would  have  a  special  message  of  vast 
importance  to  give  to  the  world  which  he  or  she, 
and  none  other,  could  give,  and  which  is  now 
largely  lost,  but  which  in  the  future  when  made 
practical  will  be  found  of  greatest  benefit  to  man- 
kind, and  then  the  human  race  will  fulfil  those 
prophecies  of  old  which  proclaim :  "And  they  shall 
teach  no  more  every  man  his  neighbor  and  every 
man  his  brother,  saying  Know  the  Lord,  for  they 
shall  all  know  me  from  the  least  of  them  unto  the 
greatest  of  them,  saith  the  Lord,"  and  "For  the 
earth  shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord 
as  the  waters  cover  the  sea." 


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